I miss you so much. I haven’t written to you since the excitement the day after the ER, and now you’re gone. The two weeks since we found out about your swelling have gone so terribly fast, yet I feel like we had just enough time with you before we lost you. Thank you for staying with me through Mother’s Day. And thank you for coming to us at all. We love you so so much.

I came back to work yesterday, bean, and I have felt pregnant both days. I have gotten a little bit of afternoon sickness, have been so tired, and if I didn’t know any better, swear I could have felt you wiggling around in there. But you’re not here, and my body is still confused. One minute I was pregnant, the next I wasn’t. I don’t know how to comprehend the change that I had no part in. With Carter, I was an active participant in his delivery. With you, I was asleep on a table.

I’m waiting to hear from the doctor if he was able to have you cremated or not. I’m going to guess he wasn’t, but I don’t know how to get some closure on your loss without that. Maybe daddy and I can just say some words next to Carter’s grave and pretend you’re there. Maybe we can get a little plaque with your name on it or something. But I just really want to be able to spread your ashes. I want some physical proof that you were here, and that I’m not making it up like I made up Carter.

It’s such a confusing thing, to lose a baby. How do you lose something you barely had? And I barely barely had you. You were still so little. The report says your hand measured 1 centimeter, and your little foot measured 1.1 centimeter. You were barely there. And now you’re not here, and I can’t grasp it.

I can’t understand why we had to lose you. I get that maybe the timing was just meant to be this way. You were supposed to come for a bit, but that you have other stuff to take care of up there, and that you’ll be back. I hope you’ll be back. I knew it was you and I knew you were here before I even knew I was pregnant. You and I have a special, special bond that I wouldn’t trade for anything. But I hate that I knew you were gone. I hate that you had to go in the first place.

This week we would have been sixteen weeks pregnant, and we would have been sharing you with the world, finally. Instead we shared the news the morning we went to the hospital. And instead of sharing the news with joy, we shared it with sadness.